


The Gwyn and Augus Ice Plague Interludes

by not_poignant



Series: The Ice Plague [3]
Category: Fae Tales - not_poignant, Original Work
Genre: Affection, Angst, Arguments, Blood Drinking, Bloodletting, Comfort, Dark, Disturbing Themes, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fae Tales canon, Fairy Tale Elements, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/No Comfort, M/M, Major Communication Issues, PTSD, Politics, Seelie Court, Sickfic, Trauma Recovery, Unseelie Court, epic fantasy, fae
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-09-24 17:29:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20362345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_poignant/pseuds/not_poignant
Summary: The King of the Unseelie, Gwyn ap Nudd, and his consort, Augus Each Uisge, are on an epic journey to see if they can defeat one of the world's most powerful Mages. Along the way, they grow and change, supporting the fae that come with them as they travel into dangerous territories, but nothing can hide the fact that this will be a difficult journey for each of them. (Alternative perspectives, set during the main story -The Ice Plague).





	1. At Loggerheads

**Author's Note:**

> This is set at the end of [chapter 26 of The Ice Plague #1](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12036105/chapters/36302208), specifically when Gwyn storms off, and Augus goes after him. It does not have a happy ending. 
> 
> A second alternative perspective has been written, and ends more hopefully, and will likely be put up in a few weeks. :)

_Augus_

*

As Augus walked through the forest, he forced himself to breathe slowly. The bloodlust had risen sharp and thorny inside of him, he wanted nothing more than to turn sharpened teeth to Gwyn’s skin, rip apart his muscles and snap through twangy ligaments, feel blood run down his throat, drip down his chin onto the ground.

The intrusive thoughts came, and Augus gently wrangled them back into place. He’d had practice, after all. Showing such bloodlust before the Nightingale in the year he’d been refused any food at all had been punished so thoroughly that Augus had _learned. _

Gwyn had assumed that this journey was far more taxing because Augus was travelling, but the truth was that Augus would take hiking and camping over being raped regularly by shadow monsters any day.

Still, he sickened further, starving in the coat of Inner Court status, so that he would be awake and aware enough to feel the pain of it. He knew it was worse for Ash, pushing food towards him whenever he could. Of the two of them, Ash had the more useful power for their team, his dra’ocht could smooth things over far more frequently than Augus’ could. So he needed to eat.

At least Augus – unlike some of the other human eaters – was still lucky enough to be able to eat freshwater plants. Waterweed from lakes, algae that he scooped off with his fingers and sucked down, thinking that it might disgust Gwyn only to belatedly remember that nothing really disgusted Gwyn when it came to food.

He found Gwyn in a circular grove of trees.

_Of course, the King would find a grove. Of course he’d make it look like a painting of fae royalty pining away in the dark. Does he have any sense of his own melodrama? _

‘I am in no mood,’ Gwyn bit out, refusing to look at him.

‘I know,’ Augus said tiredly.

‘No?’ Gwyn said, turning to face him, expression forbidding. ‘Not going to fuck it into me?’

‘Gwyn,’ Augus said, having no energy to banter with him. He couldn’t even stalk and hurt him like he used to be able to. He was too weak and Gwyn knew it. Normally, Gwyn would allow it anyway, especially if Augus used pressure points, but he knew this stubborn, unshifting mood.

With a sadness in his heart, he wished he didn’t have to play this role opposite his _anam cara. _But no one else was going to do it. No one else understood why it had to be done.

‘You cannot abandon your light,’ Augus said. ‘You need it back.’

‘You want that for me?’ Gwyn said. ‘Knowing what we now know? You _want _that for me?’

‘No,’ Augus said roughly. ‘But our lives have never been about what we want, but what the Kingdom _needs, _and you, Gwyn, you-’

‘I seem to recall of the two of us that I was the one who was raised Seelie,’ Gwyn muttered, voice dangerously low. ‘I beg your pardon? You speak to me of _duty? You? _You speak to me of doing what the Kingdom needs? This is so entertaining! Please, tell me how you served the Kingdom so _gracefully _when you ruled it.’

Augus fell to silence.

_Should have expected that, darling, he does rather turn your words on you these days. _

‘Well?’ Gwyn snapped. ‘Shall I make it an order?’

Augus stepped closer to him in the grove, baring his teeth briefly. ‘Fuck off.’

‘I am – aside from my shoulder – in no pain.’ Gwyn’s voice shook, and Augus’ eyes wanted to burn, and he pushed and shoved his grief aside until he no longer had to feel it.

This situation being what it was, Augus loathed it. He should be rejoicing with Gwyn. He should be comforting and calming, able to soothe him and comment in horror of all that Gwyn should not have known for three thousand years. He knew too that Gwyn wanted it. Wanted and craved validation, wanted to be told that he didn’t need to take it back. It was a knife that Augus twisted into him, because Augus feared for the fae realm, and Gwyn…

It scared Augus that Gwyn wasn’t taking it more seriously. What if removing the light somehow…made him more susceptible to whatever corrupted blood that led to the cruelty of Crielle and Efnisien? What if this Gwyn was one who didn’t care for the Kingdom? What if…?

Augus knew it was irrational, but as their quest continued, his bloodlust grew. The hollow hunger gnawing at him expanded and he stared worriedly at his exhausted brother, he found it harder to listen to logic.

‘Gwyn,’ Augus said.

‘Do not tell me what you’ve already told me,’ Gwyn said. ‘I heard you.’

‘But you don’t seem to _care _that we’re all in danger, that-’

‘You think I don’t care?’ Gwyn said, voice hard. ‘That I don’t think to scout for the best places for us all to rest? That I don’t bend my mind to all the different paths before us and try and choose the safest one? As though my light was _ever _my moral compass? Or, perhaps, Augus, you are trying to insinuate that the only way I can ever do anything right or good is by suffering for it?’

‘No,’ Augus said. There was a time when arguing with Gwyn had been amusing, but not like this, not over these subjects. ‘Olphix can destroy the world with your light. You’re just going to leave it with him? You admitted to me yourself you knew of no way to defeat him before this, and now you’re just-?’

‘-You have no evidence that he has my light,’ Gwyn said.

‘Really?’ Augus said. ‘That’s how you’re going to play it? I suppose you are very Unseelie, I’ve never seen anyone lie to themselves the way you do.’

Augus stared Gwyn down when he whirled towards him, goaded to true anger. Augus didn’t even move – it wasn’t worth wasting the energy – when Gwyn stalked towards him, grasped his shirt by the collar and twisted it up in his fist, before walking Augus backwards into a tree and pinning him there against the trunk of it.

‘I do not want it back,’ Gwyn said. ‘I do not need it back.’

‘You’re…so scared,’ Augus breathed. ‘I don’t blame you. It might kill you, to take it back. Did you know? Has it occurred to you yet? A body not constantly _burning _beneath its influence, and then you try and take it back? Maybe it will just burn you out, Gwyn.’

Gwyn’s expression twisted. His eyes. By the gods, his _eyes. _They were so blue. Already his King status was healing him of the damage his light had done. Augus’ eyes roved his face, his neck. Would he grow body hair? Would the hair on the top of his head darken? But that azure in his irises, Augus had seen that exact shade in Efnisien’s eyes when he’d ripped his jaw off with nothing more than his hand and a protective rage towards his brother to power him.

‘And you still think I need it back?’ Gwyn said.

‘It will change you not to have it,’ Augus said, not bothering to fight the grip that pinned him between his collarbones. Gwyn could have chosen to pin him by the neck and he wasn’t, it was…considerate. ‘It is already changing you.’

‘You don’t know that,’ Gwyn said, staring at him. ‘You should be happier.’

‘You should be worried.’

It was a painful impasse. There were times when Augus knew how to break Gwyn of his stubbornness. He was certain he could break Gwyn of it now, too, but he’d have to go to great lengths to do it. He couldn’t bear in that moment to hurt a Gwyn who had discovered the magic of _not hurting. _

It was so wearying. All the options before Augus stuck prickles into his own thoughts. If Gwyn got his light back, he would begin to hurt again, and then he’d grow bitter and melancholy and he’d need to grieve. Another thing to grieve. Another thing for the two of them to carry. If he got his light back and it killed him, Augus supposed he’d stay long enough to set his affairs in order, embrace Ash for as long as they both needed, and then he’d follow along behind Gwyn. If Gwyn never got his light back, his personality might change, and Augus couldn’t bear to lose the personality that he loved so fiercely it was wretched at times.

‘You’re not eating enough,’ Gwyn said. It wasn’t fair that he’d learned how to play these games too, that he’d learned in part from Augus, his own family, his own Inner Court. ‘Perhaps you are so stressed because-’

Augus calmly reached up with his arm, grasped Gwyn’s wrist between his fingers, and found three pressure points at once and dug his nails in. Gwyn – to his surprise – yelped and flinched backwards, letting go of Augus immediately.

That was…unexpected. Of course that was the _normal _reaction that most people had, but Gwyn had no normal reactions to pain. Unless…

Gwyn was staring at his own wrist in shock, then looking at Augus, eyes narrowing.

‘What did you do?’

‘Oh? You think it was me? It’s you, fool. Your body is already forgetting how to weather pain every day, maybe you’ll start reacting to it normally.’

Gwyn shook his wrist out and scowled. All right, Augus had to concede he was still responding better to the pain than most people would.

‘As I was saying,’ Augus said, hoping to shift the conversation.

‘You put yourself under immense stress,’ Gwyn said, pointing at him, and Augus folded his arms. ‘You should have gone back to the Court with Fenwrel and Gulvi!’

‘And just left you?’

‘I know what I’m doing,’ Gwyn said. ‘And if you’d gone back, Ash would have returned with you. Likely, Julvia would have as well! And then I’d only need to protect two fae, and not _five.’ _

‘You’re…’ Augus stared at him, the laugh when it came was small. ‘Ah, so, you’re blaming me for the current situation then? My wanting to stay by your side is a burden to you? Is that it?’

Gwyn was silent, but that was answer enough. Augus thought that even though Gwyn had lost his light, his aura was still scalding enough. Augus stepped away from the tree, thinking that this should have been a far different conversation. But Gwyn was dealing with the fate of the world, under-resourced and exhausted in his own way. Augus was starving to the faux-death that Inner Court status afforded him. One day, he’d just slip into a coma and never return. Not until someone bothered to drip the blood of a human over his skeleton, anyway.

The wind blew around them, Gwyn’s hair moved seamlessly with it. Augus wondered how other people saw him. The golden King, their Unseelie saviour. Augus could only see the layers of determination and stubbornness that hid a fear that Augus wasn’t sure he had the heart to expose. Not tonight. Not when Gwyn didn’t want to listen to him anyway.

This whole journey, so far, Augus had watched as Gwyn commanded, led, understood their destinations, parsed languages, came up with strategies until Augus coaxed him to bed. He once daydreamed of getting to know the soldier, but it was tiresome now. Augus ached for his lake, Gwyn’s cabin, a _home. _

He wasn’t made for travelling, he wasn’t supposed to be nomadic. In his tired, water-logged veins that craved blood and were forced to chlorophyll instead, he felt the throbbing wrongness of doing any of this.

He’d been alone before he met Gwyn, but it was through Gwyn that he came to know what it was to feel lonely.

Gwyn turned then, to look at him. Something heavy and unmoving in his expression.

‘I am the same as I’ve always been,’ Gwyn said. ‘I haven’t changed.’

‘The Gwyn I know, would recognise that he needs his light back, and shoulder that responsibility with strength. The Gwyn that I know, I would offer him succour for it. But I had no idea you were in so much pain, and had I known, I would have wished for you to be free of it. But not like this.’

Gwyn said nothing. The wind picked up around him. Augus knew it was his place to force Gwyn onto the right path, but instead he said nothing. He was tired, sore, wished to rest underwater. Wished to _hunt. _But the bloodlust was no savagery inside of him. It was as though his waterhorse recognised this starvation, feared the Nightingale, and hid deeper than ever. Unlike Ash, Augus wasn’t having to overcome murderous impulses as often, nor were they as strong. His waterhorse, a coward who knew what it was like to taste its own death.

‘You are my King,’ Augus said helplessly. ‘I seek to advise you.’

‘Perhaps, Augus,’ Gwyn said, and then paused. He looked away. When he looked back, Augus could only see that blue that was nothing like _his _blue. The paleness suited him better. Made him more handsome, to Augus anyway. Now it was gone. ‘Perhaps you might have stopped to consider that I don’t need you as my advisor in this. I need you as…’

He couldn’t complete the sentence. Augus couldn’t complete it either. Gwyn needed him as what? A friend? Ally? Lover?

Would it change Augus’ mind at all?

‘You’ve changed me,’ Augus said finally, smiling to himself, ignoring the way Gwyn looked at him. ‘You have, haven’t you? You have spent years focusing on the big picture, forgetting to look after yourself, and while I have reminded you to do so, I have learned how to look at the big picture too. Today, it’s all I see. A blow has been struck at you, and you think it’s a gift. Did your parents teach you that?’

Gwyn was silent, damning, and Augus licked his lips and was so hungry he could cry, except it was pointless. He’d licked and lapped at Gwyn’s blood at first, but though it tasted delicious, it sated nothing.

‘Augus,’ Gwyn said, his voice rough. ‘I cannot go back to how it was.’

‘Why not? You found happiness in it, didn’t you? You found a purpose.’

‘Do you know what this reminds me of?’ Gwyn said, walking closer to Augus. So close, that Gwyn was right in his personal space, the wind pressing their clothes together, though no other part of them touched. ‘This reminds me of when you begged me to be King, and used reason to force it upon me, then took me to the Court under the pretence of telling me I simply needed to visit, then showed me what a ruin it was, knowing – as you played with my Seelie self – that I would bend and break and accept the crown. I will carry that for the rest of my life. I did that for _you.’ _

‘You did it for the Kingdom.’

‘No,’ Gwyn said, touching his finger to Augus’ chin. He didn’t raise Augus’ head, just kept it there. ‘I can work my will better beyond a Kingdom and beyond Kingship, and you know it, you’ve seen it over the weeks we’ve been travelling. I am far more effective like this, than I have ever been, yoked behind a desk, in a _Court. _But I did it for you. To protect you. To protect your brother. To rescue something, that you might be proud of it again, a Court that wouldn’t leave you to people who would abuse and betray you.’

Augus said nothing at all. He told himself this was a Gwyn completely unfamiliar to him, and he ignored the bitterness of how hard it was to broach the space between them. Even Gwyn’s touch felt alien.

‘So this reminds me of you telling me to become King,’ Gwyn said, ‘because you also could see the big picture, even then. I didn’t teach you that. Your ability to see the big picture – flawed though your vision has been, has _always _been – is how you knew to gain the throne so that you might destroy it. Maybe the Nightingale taught it to you.’

The rage, when it came, was bolstered by the fury of a trapped, exhausted waterhorse. Augus’ teeth lengthened, his claws shot up and went to rake deep, bloody furrows into Gwyn’s face, but Gwyn caught him by the wrist and held him by the jaw and kept him still.

‘You telling me that you need me to accept my light, be horrified that it’s gone, is very much like you telling me I needed to become King. Augus, I have done a terrible thing for you that I cannot unmake, and I have accepted that as best as I know how. But Augus, I will not heed you now. Because what you ask of me now is _worse.’ _He paused, his breath shook. ‘I hate you for it.’

Gwyn let go of him abruptly and walked away, towards the darkness of trees that folded him up like a secret.

‘I will not go far,’ Gwyn said, as Augus dammed away his tears. ‘But if you follow, I will go further.’

He left Augus in the grove, jaw aching, wrist bruised where Gwyn had grabbed it. He stayed, thinking of what he could have done, what he should have said instead.


	2. Lost Without You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is set before the beginning of [chapter 2](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17959874/chapters/42834056), of _The Ice Plague #2: The Seething Seas_. It follows on loosely from the last alternative perspective. Basically Augus is still unconscious in those first few days on the Mantissa, and Gwyn is fretting about it.
> 
> Tags now include: hurt/comfort, affection, bloodletting, and sickfic.

_Gwyn_

*

He knew it was indulgent, to spend so much time in this room, when there was so much he was meant to be doing. Ondine had no shortage of political manoeuvring to catch him up on, his ability to be useful on a ship was patchy at best – it wasn’t like Lludd in his capacity as Admiral of the Seelie Navy had ever let him sail – and day after day, hour after hour, his mind was filled with the need to have multiple plans underway. He needed to do more, action more, find more solutions, and every day, every hour trickled by and he grasped at straws and wondered if this was how Kabiri felt, sowing his debts and still likely dying.

_Yes, because of course you are like a god, you arrogant idiot. _

But instead, he sat here between two beds. Ash on his left, and Augus on his right. They had been given as much healing as they could take, syringed saltvarra directly into their stomachs when they wouldn’t wake to eat it, and after that Augus had woken briefly. Ash hadn’t woken at all. That, more than anything, worried Gwyn. Ash was the stronger of the both of them, but he seemed sorely weakened by their journey, and there was something fading in the brightness of him. Something had corroded away and Gwyn didn’t know how to restore it, he was sure Augus didn’t either.

He stared at the golden arm hair on his forearm. There were a lot of things he could feel more intensely now. He thought his skin had been more sensitive before, but it was the other way around. Every time he shifted in his clothing, his hairs caught and dragged minutely on cloth. The direction of the wind was easier to sense, as well as oncoming rain.

Augus was wary of it. Augus was wary of all of him now. Gwyn could see the way his gaze shifted if he stared into Gwyn’s eyes for too long. The way he reached out to touch him – once so familiar – only to hesitate at the body hair beneath his palm. He hadn’t once touched Gwyn’s stubble.

So Gwyn’s light being gone was a freedom from physical pain he’d never known he was carrying, but it was a different kind of pain now, a lack of ease between them, the sense that maybe it would always be like this. He hadn’t known how much he craved Augus’ ease with him, until it was gone. Gwyn felt too much of a wild animal himself, to coax Augus back. He was tired of trying to convince him he was the same person, when he didn’t know himself.

Augus shifted restlessly, Gwyn watched. The seahorse shifters would come soon, any day now, but until then it was only saltvarra that would help Augus weather the awful, erosive force of being surrounded by the sea.

A wracking, brutal cough, and Gwyn grabbed the saltvarra before he even got the water. He crushed the dried leafy-seaweed in his fingers.

‘Saltvarra,’ Gwyn said, holding it to Augus’ mouth. ‘It will help you to chew it.’

Augus’ eyes cracked open, he looked like he had a bit more awareness than the last time he’d woken. He looked furious. But he opened his mouth for the saltvarra, forcibly stopping himself from coughing, though his chest heaved with the movements. Gwyn poured him water, and the saltvarra must have helped, because Augus’ chest calmed.

‘I’ll help you sit,’ Gwyn said, but as he slid his hand behind Augus’ back, sharp, brittle claws made bloodied lines of his forearm. Gwyn hesitated, then sat back in the chair. Normally he’d just make Augus sit up, give him the water, but everything was uneasy now. He knew Augus was justified in hating him for bringing them onto the Mantissa.

Gwyn didn’t know how to tell him that there was nothing else he could think of. Nothing else to do. They all looked to him like he had secrets up his sleeve, but aside from one weak promise from the Nain Rouge that ensured very little, he had nothing.

Augus pushed himself up with a painful slowness. He reached for the water with a shaking arm and Gwyn wanted to support the glass, wanted to help, but he could tell from those cutting green eyes that trying would be useless.

Augus made short work of the water, and Gwyn poured more automatically. Augus was already reaching for more saltvarra and eating it, not bothering to crush it like Gwyn had.

Augus looked past Gwyn, at Ash.

‘Has he-?’

‘No,’ Gwyn said. ‘He’s still unconscious. I think using his glamour the way that he did, or helping you make the dome, was too much for him. The healers say he is fine, and that he will wake soon, but that he needs a lot of rest. They say his heartsong is very frail.’

Augus stared at Ash for a long time, and then closed his eyes, leaning heavily against the headboard, still slowly chewing the saltvarra.

What little of Augus’ voice that Gwyn had heard was ruined and strained, the salt water had etched its way through his throat. Augus once compared exposure to ocean air like eating glass, or thorns. Gwyn thought of Eran and Mosk and Julvia safe on the ship, he thought of how he had good alliances here, and how the ice couldn’t follow them, and how ultimately, Ash and Augus were _alive. _

It wasn’t enough to assuage the guilt. He’d been without Augus for too long, and now that Augus was awake, it didn’t mean that he was Gwyn’s ally, or even his friend.

‘So,’ Augus rasped. ‘You were this desperate, were you? We had no other options, did we?’

‘I am sorry.’

Augus stared at him, and Gwyn looked away, so that Augus wouldn’t have to see his darker blue eyes and think he was a stranger.

‘The seahorse shifters will be here any day now,’ Gwyn said. ‘They have an ability to-’

‘I know what they can do,’ Augus said.

‘Yes.’

He couldn’t remember the last time Augus was this angry at him. They’d started to resolve things, but Augus was a scathing patient, and Gwyn’s arm was still bleeding.

‘Do you want me to leave?’ Gwyn asked.

‘I need to rest.’

‘Yes, of course,’ Gwyn said.

‘Give me an update before you leave, at least,’ Augus said.

Gwyn hesitated, then launched into a report, including the battle on the shore before the Mantissa had found them. He didn’t know how much of that Augus remembered, and he was unconscious before the battle ended. He covered everything he could think of, and Augus tried to stay alert, but fell asleep towards the end.

Gwyn watched the slow rise and fall of his breathing and thought this was the most peaceful it ever was between them lately. He stayed for another ten minutes, and then made himself leave, because this was not a time of leisure for him, and he needed answers from a world that scarce seemed to have them for him.

*

The next day, Ash still wasn’t awake, but Augus was already sitting upright and holding the glass of water in his lap when Gwyn appeared. He hesitated in the doorway, and Augus inclined his head enough that Gwyn knew he could enter. He moved the chair and sat on it, then looked at Ash who was still breathing deeply, easily. He looked well, at least.

‘Working hard?’ Augus said.

‘Yes.’

‘I find I grow bored, lying here, unable to do anything at all. Can you not at least send me company sometimes?’

‘I can,’ Gwyn said. ‘I’ve placed some fresh water outside the room, so that people can wipe some of the excess salt off before they enter. I thought… I thought it might help.’

Augus narrowed his eyes, said nothing, and Gwyn wondered what succour he thought he’d find here. He didn’t want his light back, but he wished he had it, if only because it might make Augus treat him differently. He wondered what Olphix was doing with it, felt sick to think about it. Olphix had all of those classless powers, and Gwyn had no idea what he was doing with any of it. Rarely was he this out of touch with something so significant, and he knew he would be blindsided, there was no way he could strategize when he knew so little.

‘There really was no other option, was there?’ Augus said, and though his voice was strained, it was softer than before.

‘I couldn’t think of one,’ Gwyn said. ‘It doesn’t mean there wasn’t one.’

Augus sighed and sipped at the water. Though he looked bad, he still didn’t look nearly as bad as he had the time he’d essentially been killed and brought back to life. Gwyn hated that this was his barometer of Augus’ health, but he hoped it meant that Augus would be a lot happier after the seahorse shifters came. He hoped their ability would work.

‘And how do you spend your days, now that you’re here?’

‘Researching,’ Gwyn said. ‘Learning about sea fae politics. Training.’

‘And?’

‘And sometimes I am here.’

‘Ah,’ Augus said.

‘Well, I…’ Gwyn didn’t know how they’d come to this. He remembered being angry at Augus, for a little while, and perhaps he’d said things he couldn’t take back. Maybe they both had. Gwyn didn’t think it was possible. Not after where they’d come from, what they’d been through. ‘I’ll…I’ll leave you to rest.’

He stood, and Augus shook his head once.

‘Stay,’ Augus said. ‘Unless you have things you’d rather be doing?’

Gwyn sank back into the chair with a painful gratitude. He didn’t know what to say. Hadn’t things started to mend between them? Especially at the verkhwin’s lair? Was that all in Gwyn’s imagination? He didn’t know what to do anymore.

‘Are you _afraid _of me?’ Augus said slowly. ‘I am currently bedridden and completely unthreatening.’

Gwyn didn’t say a word. The scratches on his forearm from the day before had already healed. His healing factor was faster, better now that he no longer had his light. Sparring in some ways was easier. While he still had to be careful of his shoulder, and aware that pain felt _worse, _he healed better than ever.

‘I’m not afraid of you,’ Gwyn said.

‘You’re lying to me. Well, what is it then? Are they all talking about how awful I am on the ship?’

‘They hardly know you. They say nothing that hasn’t been said before.’

‘Then what is it?’ Now he sounded impatient, and Gwyn thought that it was quite something, the way most of the fae in his life treated him, compared to how Augus treated him.

_I do not like the way you look at me now, _Gwyn thought. _Like I am different. A stranger. And one that cannot be trusted, at that. _

‘You shouldn’t have made that dome,’ Gwyn said, changing the subject. ‘I have never seen you use your powers like that. What if it hadn’t worked?’

‘I know myself, it would have always worked. I didn’t need Ash’s help. The fool.’

‘You collapsed. Did you think that was a fair exchange?’

‘Yes,’ Augus said. ‘We needed to get to the ship, didn’t we? I’m not sure we would have survived otherwise.’

Gwyn was silent. Changing the subject hadn’t helped much, but at least Augus was redirected to something else he could be angry and short-tempered about.

Gwyn thought that Augus was starving, and that the only reason he couldn’t starve to death – like goodness knew how many other fae had already starved to death – was that he was a higher status. But Augus would feel it, constantly. There was nothing Gwyn could do. Or, more accurately, there was one thing they could do, but only if they were on land, and the ice wasn’t chasing them, and Gwyn was willing to pay the price.

He was willing, but they weren’t on land, and the ice was chasing them.

So there was nothing he could do.

He ached to think of it, how Augus suffered, how he’d already been through enough. Just sitting here hurt. He’d failed him. Over and over again. The Kingdom too. Would they remember his reign as the one that saw the deaths of so many Unseelie fae to starvation? And the Unseelie King just left during the worst of it? Would he ever find an answer? If he didn’t, it would only look to them like he’d abandoned the throne.

‘Gwyn,’ Augus said softly. ‘Why are you afraid of me?’

‘You like it when I’m afraid of you.’

‘Don’t do that. I like it _sometimes, _in very _specific _circumstances. I am the weakest I’ve ever been. An invalid, at that. There’s nothing frightening about me.’

‘Then you have your answer,’ Gwyn said.

‘You won’t even meet my eyes.’

‘You don’t like them,’ Gwyn said.

Augus was silent, and then where Gwyn expected a denial, Augus said nothing, only drank more water. Gwyn didn’t like his eyes either. They were Efnisien’s, and very like his mother’s, and he didn’t like to catch his reflection, even though everyone went out of their way to tell him it was such a handsome blue. The sea trows had taken to calling him the ‘Golden Star’ and refused to stop even when Gwyn had asked them. They were horribly stubborn about it.

He’d never been handsome, or attractive. He was bulky and unwieldy, not slender nor lissom nor graceful outside of battle. He was too tall, too broad, too pale. But Augus had seen something in him worth keeping, and he no longer saw it.

Gwyn had never cared much for people finding him unattractive. That was his mother’s world, and war didn’t demand anything more aesthetic than the flash of a sword under the sun’s glare. He hated that he cared.

‘You’re so different now,’ Augus said.

The words pressed on some bruised, wounded thing in him, and he stood. He was halfway to the door when Augus said his name. He had to stop. He wanted to be here, even though it hurt. He couldn’t explain it. He craved Augus’ company.

‘I’ve hurt you,’ Augus said. He coughed a few times after that, and Gwyn heard the rattling sound of him reaching for dried saltvarra. Gwyn knew he should leave him to rest, but he would stay if Augus asked him to stay. He would stop if Augus spoke his name. Gwyn faced the door, and he thought that he just wanted to sleep. ‘I’ve been harsh with you.’

‘You are starving,’ Gwyn said. ‘And you are in pain, constantly.’

‘I’m more aware of that than anyone,’ Augus said wryly.

‘You should get more rest.’

‘So should you. I can tell you’re tired. Maybe you should come here.’

Gwyn swallowed and turned, looking at the bed, not Augus’ face.

‘Come here,’ Augus said, his voice softer.

Gwyn didn’t like this either. He could tell when he was being coaxed, and he hated how he would forsake everything for an Augus that spoke to him like that. He walked in slow, silent steps across the room, feeling the deep movements of the ship around them. Augus would feel it too, he’d hate it.

He stood by Augus’ bed, resisted only when Augus tried to draw him down by his wrist. When Gwyn didn’t move, Augus said nothing, but after a moment he turned Gwyn’s arm in his hands, like he was looking for the wounds he’d made the day before. With an accuracy that was no longer surprising, Augus traced the skin like he could still see them. He’d not even seemed aware when he’d made them, but he remembered the wounds all the same. Gwyn never knew if that was his waterhorse self, or if it was the part of him that needed to dominate others.

‘Come,’ Augus said, ‘lay next to me.’

Gwyn almost turned to look at Ash, but he knew Ash was in such a deep sleep that only better health would rouse him. His rest was not normal fae sleep, and they both knew it.

He heard the sharp intake of Augus’ impatient breath and his knees bent as he eased onto the bed, warding off whatever cutting words would come. Augus tugged him so that Gwyn had no choice but to clamber over him, ending up between Augus’ body and the wall, a strangely trapped position, and Gwyn grimaced and didn’t like that he was so far from the door, and that it would be awkward and unwieldy to get off the bed.

He knew Augus had done it on purpose.

‘Here,’ Augus said. ‘I’m already exhausted, don’t make it harder. Lie down on your side.’

Augus shifted the pillows, and they appeared at exactly the right height beneath his head as he sunk down. They were damp, but Gwyn had gotten used to associating damp pillows with Augus, and therefore, the feeling of home. He was facing Augus, but he looked at his neck instead of his face. His feet hung off the end of the bed, and he didn’t even care. He’d ached to rest next to Augus on a bed since Oengus’ tower. It felt like a lifetime ago already.

It was one thing to go on campaigns with trained soldiers, but quite another to need to babysit so many vulnerable fae who could be surprisingly powerful in moments, but knew nothing truly of war, of battle, of subterfuge. He couldn’t debate strategy with any of them, except maybe Ash, and sometimes Augus when he insisted on being a sounding board. But even then, it wasn’t the same.

Gwyn had never felt so tired in his life, except perhaps when he’d needed to take Terho with him into the underworlds, and that had never taken so long as this. Though, perhaps, it had been as hopeless.

But even then, he knew that Terho would be able to lock up the Nightingale again, even though he knew of no way to destroy him.

There was not a single way he could think of, to stop Olphix. Not one. He knew that projectiles disintegrated around Olphix if they flew towards him with the threat of harm. He’d heard it from Mosk, and he’d heard it since from other fae as they collected information. Olphix didn’t need to be aware of the attack for the defence to kick in. All physical attacks were useless.

Then, Gwyn had explored the option of overwhelming him with magic, but Oengus had taken one look at him with that mournful, despairing gaze, and Gwyn – back in that tower, eating far too many apples – had said:

‘What if it was all of you? The entire School of the Staff?’

‘Firstly, we would not all turn against him,’ Oengus said. ‘Secondly, I am not sure even that would be enough.’

‘If you’re not sure-’

‘You do not understand, friend,’ Oengus said heavily. ‘You do not understand what he can do.’

‘_Could _do, while Davix was still alive.’

‘_Can _do, on his own. Gwyn, there is nothing and no one like him. Olphix was stronger than even his brother, and guided him forwards like a teacher. I want to be wrong, sorely, but we are at his mercy.’

‘That’s not good enough.’

‘The world never promised to be good enough to any of us,’ Oengus said softly, looking out of a window with no glass pane, to where all those swans swam, no doubt teasing him with what he would never have again.

And now Oengus was dead, all the swans were gone, and Gwyn had conceded reluctantly that he might be right, and that was before his light had been taken.

‘Gwyn,’ Augus said, like he’d been trying to get his attention for a while.

Gwyn turned his head up and met Augus’ eyes by accident, and didn’t know how to read Augus’ expression, nor did he know why it changed as Augus watched him. But it wasn’t a shuttering off, a closing down, or a turning away. Gwyn looked down all the same.

He would find a way to kill Olphix. That was what he did and that was what he’d always done. Whether it was rescue people who had been forgotten about in tales or stories, or recapture the Nightingale, or displace Augus from the throne when he’d been at his most destructive; if Gwyn willed it, miracles happened.

‘We are going to fail,’ Gwyn said.

Augus stilled, his very breath quiet in his lungs.

Gwyn laughed. ‘Isn’t that what you wanted me to acknowledge? We were going to fail even when I had my light.’

‘Gwyn, I-’

‘I can’t let it happen,’ Gwyn said. ‘I can’t. I will not call off this journey, I will not sway from my purpose, and if there is a way that I can earn a single one of my monikers and destroy him, by the Gods, I will do it. But you shouldn’t be with me, nor Ash, nor any of the others.’

Augus began to breathe again, but his lungs moved unevenly. Gwyn could hear it.

After a moment, it was Gwyn’s turn to still when he felt a hand curve over his shoulder, and then slide upwards, the back of Augus’ hand trailing tiredly over his cheek and then burrowing deep into his hair.

Gwyn didn’t say any of the other things he desperately wanted to say, because he could guess how Augus would react, and he knew Augus was already terrified of them happening.

He could not say that he expected to die on this journey, he could not promise that he would ensure when he died, he would do it to defend all of them.

Gwyn’s eyes closed and he hated that he stole rest on the Mantissa to shore up his reserves in every way possible. He knew what he had to be willing to do and he knew that he would only grow more willing to do it. The more he loved Augus, the more he saw the cultures and the people he cared about trying their best to flourish in a world already so damaged by the legacy of Davix and Olphix. If a child could kill Davix, then Gwyn would be responsible, and find a way to kill the other.

But it hurt, sometimes, to think about. It hurt when he wondered if losing his light had changed him too much. If he was different, would he even know it? Did Augus look at him like he was a stranger, because he’d become a stranger? He felt the same as he’d always been.

Augus’ hand in Gwyn’s hair was unfairly comforting, given how much it all hurt, in that moment. He let himself think things he would never confront elsewhere, away from Augus.

‘We’re not going to fail,’ Augus said, hushing him when Gwyn opened his mouth to point out that Augus was the first one who knew it to be true. Augus was the one, of all of them, who had taken great pains to antagonise Gwyn into admitting that they couldn’t win, none of them. ‘You’re not going to fail.’

‘Augus, you can’t-’

‘Stop,’ Augus said. He didn’t sound afraid, and he slid back down on the bed properly, under the covers, and faced Gwyn. He leaned in until he could press his forehead against the top of his head, for Gwyn had ducked his face down too much for Augus to reach any other part of him.

Augus’ hand massaged quietly, taking up curls and letting them fall, over and over, every movement sensual. Gwyn drowned willingly.

‘You’re so tired,’ Augus said quietly. ‘You haven’t slept properly since…’

Gwyn tried not to think about it. While he’d gotten better at sleeping through a single night, instead of needing a block of two to three solid days at a time, the fact was that he hadn’t slept through a single night since they’d gone to visit the Aur forest, with Eran and Mosk in tow.

‘Gods, Gwyn, you need sleep.’

‘Yes,’ Gwyn said. ‘I’ll sleep when I can.’

‘No, Gwyn, you need _sleep.’ _

‘Stop this. You are the one who needs rest, the Mantissa is toxic for you and Ash in a way that it isn’t to anyone else here, and-’

There was nothing else to say, the way Augus’ hand suddenly tightened in his hair, a punishingly tight grip. And then a twist of Augus’ wrist, and Gwyn’s neck arched backwards as he tried to ease the strain. And just like that, Augus was glaring at him, and Gwyn realised he wasn’t going to be allowed to hide anymore.

Gwyn tried to look past him and he saw the way Augus’ expression twitched.

‘Stop that.’

‘You don’t like them,’ Gwyn said.

‘Well, I can still _see them, _even if you’re not looking at me.’

Gwyn grit his teeth and yanked his head out of Augus’ hand, hair pulling free with tiny stings. He ducked his head again, cursing the shade of his eyes, his darker hair, even the stubble. He didn’t have to shave it all the time, because he was old enough as a fae that he could set the length, but he kept forgetting that he grew it in the first place, so he often didn’t think about it until it was long enough that he knew he needed to shave.

And he hated it. Hated shaving, hated reminding himself of what he’d gained without his light. He looked as he was always meant to look. He looked the way he was supposed to look, in a lifetime when Crielle would have loved him wholly and with as much truth as she could. Every time he saw himself in a mirror, he saw Augus’ doubt, and he felt the distance of Crielle’s acceptance, the knowledge that he would never have it.

_‘Gwyn,’ _Augus said, part reprimand, part shock. ‘You can’t be serious.’

And then Augus was coughing again, swearing under his breath in some watery language, twisting to reach for the saltvarra, the water. Gwyn used the opportunity to sit up, to slide away, and stopped when he felt claws sink into his neck. That was vicious, even for Augus. Blood trickled down his back immediately.

‘Stay there a moment,’ Augus rasped.

Gwyn was certain if he wrenched himself forwards, Augus would happily rip the skin from the back of his neck away, so he stayed still.

Augus finished drinking, continued to chew the saltvarra, and then turned to face him. His claws eased back by millimetres, and when the blood flowed, Gwyn didn’t move as Augus leaned towards it and licked it. Over the weeks, Augus’ bloodlust meant that he drew blood more often, he tasted it more often. Gwyn didn’t mind.

A hand pushed his head forward to expose more of his neck, and Augus’ tongue was flat and broad, taking up as much of the blood as possible. Gwyn shivered, his breathing shallow. He closed his eyes, he’d missed all of this too.

‘It tastes different,’ Augus said against the back of his neck. ‘Without your light. It’s different.’

Gwyn wanted to ask how, but he held it back. Anything that reminded him of how different and changed he was now was like a knife to his heart, he hated it.

Augus kept lapping at the back of his neck for long minutes, and then his fingers brushed over the wounds he’d made and Gwyn realised they were already closing.

‘Lie back,’ Augus said, his voice so gentle now. ‘Lie on your back.’

Augus’ hand came around and pressed on his chest, encouraging him backwards. Gwyn went with it, the lightest touch making him lie flat. Augus looked at him for a long time, and then crawled on top of him carefully, breathing slowly, sometimes pausing and closing his eyes like he was forcefully stopping himself from coughing. It must hurt his lungs, his chest, his whole body just to breathe on this ship.

Gwyn watched him, dared to catalogue everything about his face when Augus had his eyes closed.

But then Augus’ eyes were open, and he was looking down at Gwyn, and Gwyn was looking away again.

‘Look at me,’ Augus said, raised above him, braced on his arms. ‘Don’t make me work this hard, just to avoid me now. Let me look at you.’

‘You can see me.’

‘You know what I mean,’ Augus said. ‘Please, Gwyn.’

One of Augus’ hands came up and cupped his chin with his thumb and fingers. Gwyn looked hesitantly up at Augus and stayed still, let him do what he wanted. He could tell that something had changed, some mysterious quality in Augus shifting and becoming softer than before, like he’d realised something.

Augus leaned on him heavily, staring down into Gwyn’s eyes and holding his face in place, and Gwyn wanted nothing more than to squeeze his eyes shut, but he didn’t. Not with the way Augus stared at him. Studied him.

‘You haven’t changed,’ Augus said finally.

The words would have felt reassuring if Augus had said that when he’d lost his light, but instead…

‘I don’t know,’ Gwyn said, his voice shaking.

‘You don’t know?’

‘Maybe I have.’

‘You can’t tell?’ Augus frowned a little, and Gwyn had to close his eyes. He was so tired. It was easier to push himself than ever, without his light. All the energy that had gone towards surviving its corrosive presence was now thrown into strategy, staying awake, staying alert. Waiting, always waiting, for whatever Olphix might do next. ‘What if you haven’t, and I’ve been treating you like a stranger all this time, just to get you to listen to me? That would be a cruel thing to do, wouldn’t it?’

‘No,’ Gwyn said.

‘But then, I’ve always been cruel,’ Augus said, stroking Gwyn’s hairline slowly. ‘It is so gold now. Lustrous and mellifluous, like a good, rich honey.’ His fingers swept back into Gwyn’s hair again, gentle once more. ‘I kept thinking you’d been taken from me, somehow, but what if you hadn’t?’

Gwyn had nothing to say. He didn’t know anymore. He could only continue as he had been all along, he had his goals, he had the principles that guided him, and the elation of no longer having his light was quickly crushed beneath losing a level of connection to Augus that he’d started to take for granted.

‘I’ve missed you,’ Augus said softly, pressing his lips to Gwyn’s. ‘I’ve missed you, and you’ve been here all along.’

That was as good as an apology from Augus, and it was agonising, because it hurt to feel upset for how Augus had treated him, all this time, while Gwyn tried to keep the group together, flailing without the support he’d thought would be unwavering.

‘Please stop,’ Gwyn said.

‘My sorrowful King.’ Augus kissed him the way Gwyn liked to kiss. A mere brush of lips, a closed mouth against a closed mouth. Gwyn’s eyes hurt. Augus disarmed him with simple sentences, and Gwyn couldn’t remember how to move. ‘I hate so much that you know what it’s like to live without it now. Every facet of it, the joy you had that it was taken, all of it, I want so badly to be able to celebrate it with you.’

‘Can’t you?’ Gwyn said, his voice breaking. ‘Is it so hard?’

Augus’ arms curved around Gwyn’s head, and then Augus was just holding him like that, awkward but close, lips against Gwyn’s forehead. A horrible sense that maybe Augus also knew where this was headed. Maybe Augus also knew they were doomed to fail. And maybe Augus’ way of dealing with it was seeing a stranger and reacting with distrust.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Gwyn said, his next exhale heavier than the others before it, the inhale sharper. ‘I’m so sorry. You should never have been caught up in all of this. One of their monstrosities hurt you so much, and one of their students too, and now I’m doing the same. If there was any way I could-’

Augus’ lips against his, and this time the kiss wasn’t gentle, or chaste, but possessive. Gwyn could feel the tiredness in Augus’ slow movements, but the kiss was claiming all the same. Gwyn opened his mouth to it after resisting, and he moaned softly at the way Augus knew what to do. Every sensual movement of his tongue, his lips, familiar and soothing and good at the same time.

When Augus pulled back, Gwyn was silent.

‘Don’t apologise,’ Augus said. ‘And don’t apologise at a time when we know who should be sorry. Just stay here, with me. Please. Can you sleep? Even for a few hours?’

‘Maybe,’ Gwyn said. ‘Probably.’

‘I need you more than any of them do,’ Augus said, smiling a little. ‘Don’t you know that already?’

‘You didn’t want me.’

‘You changed, after,’ Augus said, ‘but what person doesn’t change, when a burden has been lifted? I don’t know why I… Even in clients, I’ve seen it, and know they haven’t really _changed. _But with you- Ah, I can do better, too. I keep thinking ahead to the future, but perhaps it would be no bad thing to enjoy this with you, in the present. It can be the one good thing while I’m on this forsaken ship that I loathe with every fibre of my being.’

Gwyn smiled at the cattiness in Augus’ voice, and Augus smiled back.

But then Augus shifted, lowering his head to Gwyn’s chest, his hands sliding beneath Gwyn’s head, cradling it. He fell silent, his breathing laboured, but steady and slow. Gwyn placed a hand between Augus’ shoulders and felt the crackle in his chest.

‘If the seahorse shifters cannot help you,’ Gwyn said, ‘we will leave the Mantissa.’

‘I am sure they’ll be able to ease the worst of it,’ Augus murmured. ‘I know we cannot leave for a time. I can survive the Mantissa. I cannot survive the ice. None of us can.’

Gwyn nodded, and Augus kept stroking his scalp, and then his forehead and cheeks and his eyebrows, and Gwyn’s eyes closed, his breathing slowed. Yes, he could probably doze for a few hours. That would be safe. It wasn’t like they couldn’t find him in an emergency.

For the first time in too long, he felt…almost peaceful, and he rubbed Augus’ back gently, hoping to soothe whatever fractious, awful thing was happening with Augus’ chest. He seemed to like it, from the way he sagged down, his breathing lengthening, relaxing.

He had nearly surrendered to the sleepy dark that beckoned, when Augus shifted a little.

‘Forgive me,’ Augus said.

A shock, to hear words like that from Augus’ lips. There was only one answer he could give.

‘Of course,’ Gwyn replied.

Augus paused, perhaps he’d thought Gwyn was already asleep. But then after a minute his head lowered down and he nuzzled closer, humming softly as though pleased. Gwyn wondered if Augus would say anything else, but he didn’t wait to hear the words. He let himself sleep, both of his arms resting on Augus’ back, holding him close, more content than he had been for weeks.


End file.
